The flow curve of wormlike micelles usually exhibits a stress plateau ${\sigma }^{\star }$ separating high and low viscosity branches, leading to shear-banded flows. We study the flow of semidilute wormlike micellar systems in a confined geometry: a straight microchannel. We characterize their local rheology thanks to particle image velocimetry. We show that flow curves cannot be described by a simple constitutive equation linking the local shear stress to the local shear rate. We demonstrate the existence of nonlocal effects in the flow of wormlike micellar systems and make use of a theoretical framework allowing the measurement of correlation lengths.

• Received 19 July 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.038301